Picking up the pieces in Kosovo: understanding post-conflict livelihoods

Do aid agencies know enough about the vulnerability and resilience of those affected by conflict? Are aid agencies driven by an emergency mentality which constrains staff from genuinely using participatory methods? How can livelihoods researchers in post-conflict states link community findings to macro-economic and political trends?

A report from CARE International UK draws on experience in Kosovo to assess the use of participatory methodologies for qualitative poverty and livelihoods assessments in situations of chronic conflict and political instability (SCCPI).

In July 2000, the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) released a reconstruction plan to signal the shift from relief to development. To assist this process, and to avoid repeating the common pattern whereby humanitarian actors fail to consult local populations, the Inter-Agency Sub-Group on Poverty was formed. Its participatory assessment would generate a poverty profile to inform UNMIK’s programming.

The team found that most respondents believe that poverty has increased since the conflict. Financial and income-generating assets have been lost. Only a small minority are benefiting from livelihood options opened up by the international aid community. Many households have a limited range of coping strategies – reliance on remittances from relatives working abroad, subsistence farming, family safety nets and humanitarian aid. Poverty affects families in all major demographic categories. The size of a land holding is not a significant indicator of vulnerability as the ability of families to cultivate their land has been significantly disrupted.

The report noted that:

• The Sub-Group was dominated by international actors with low representation from local organisations: in the various agencies there was a hierarchical division between Kosovar employees and their international supervisors.
• Previous interventions based on blanket targeting of food aid – without differentiating between various groups and households – had encouraged a dependency mentality.
• While NGOs generally saw the relevance of the livelihoods framework to their programmes, UN agencies often preferred a more quantitative approach: managers often saw little value in field work or interaction with local communities.
• Assistance based on demarcated agro-ecological zones failed to address the ethnic- and conflict-based roots of poverty in Kosovo.
• Fearing accusations of bias in a context where ethnicity filters into every nuance of life, agencies are understandably reluctant to take a rights-based approach to poverty.

Wider implications for policy-makers and researchers include the need to realise that:

• The relief-to-development continuum is not unidirectional: in SCCPIs, households may shift in and out of vulnerability and will require different forms of support at different points in time.
• Different households in the same area may require more livelihoods provisioning, protection or promotion at the same point in time.
• Using income to target assistance is problematic when it is impossible to monitor household incomes due to informal activities and remittance inflows.
• Ordinary people welcome the change from the more extractive approaches used in emergency situations and are enthusiastic about having a voice in ongoing dialogue about the future of development.
• Patience is important: individuals and communities need to be allowed time to express their very personal experiences of traumatic events.
• The validity of information is proportional to the quality of interaction between facilitators and participants.

Source(s):
‘The use of participatory methods for livelihood assessment in situations of political instability: a case study from Kosovo’, Working Paper 190, Overseas Development Institute, by Karen Westley and Vladimir Mikhalev, December 2002 Full document.

Funded by: Inter-Agency Sub-Group on Poverty in Kosovo

id21 Research Highlight: 16 October 2003

Further Information:
Karen Westley
Sustainable Energy Programme
Shell Foundation
Shell Centre
London
SE1 7NA
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7934 5547
Fax: +44 (0)20 7934 7348
Contact the contributor: karen.westley@shell.com

Shell Foundation, UK

Vladimir Mikhalev
Oxford Policy Management
6 St Aldates Courtyard
38 St Aldates
Oxford
OX1 1BN
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1865 207300
Fax: +44 (0)1865 250580
Contact the contributor: Vladimir.Mikhalev@opml.co.uk

Oxford Policy Management, UK

Other related links:
'Older Serbs: unrecognized victims of the Balkan wars'

'Silent partners? Working with women to rebuild Kosovo'

'Victims or partners? Working with women to rebuild the Balkans'

'Displaced persons crisis in Kosovo– what have we learnt?'